ABSTRACT
For as long as there have been archaeologists carrying out excavations there have been people watching. In my own fieldwork I have routinely encountered people willing to spend varying amounts of time gazing down at the diggers at work, and most often I have been happy to talk to them and answer their questions. I believe that this common but curious phenomenon with its long history has far-reaching implications for the theory and practice of archaeology. The location of knowledge and the nature of the gaze are amongst the liveliest fields of discourse within modern scholarship in the arts, humanities and social sciences. A critical study of the history and geography of the archaeological gaze offers unique perspectives on these questions of place, materiality, agency and the visual, as well as valuable insights into fields such as the history of science and medicine.
